A couple in Massachusetts have been receiving items from Amazon that they didn't order since October - at the rate of one or two a week, according to Fox News.
This is apparently a scam meant to impact reviews on the Amazon site.
Here’s how the scam works: a seller trying to boost the ratings of their own merchandise sets up a fake email account to create an Amazon profile, then purchases the items with a gift card and ships them to the address of a random person. Once the package is delivered, the owner of the Amazon account is then listed as a “verified buyer” of the product and can write a positive review of it that gets higher placement on product pages because of their status, James Thomson, a former business consultant for Amazon, told the Boston Globe.
Since this post on Fox News appeared, there are a number of people - and institutions - posting on Facebook that they ALSO have been getting unordered items.
A student union president at Ryerson University in Toronto – another recipient of the mystery packages – told the CBC that Amazon would not say who is sending the items, citing privacy reasons.
“We are investigating inquiries from consumers who have received unsolicited packages as this would violate our policies,” the company told the Boston Globe in a statement. “We remove sellers in violation of our policies, withhold payments, and work with law enforcement to take appropriate action.”